HDV-have I made an expensive mistake?

I have recently bought a Canon HV20 to replace a Panasonic NV-gs400. I wanted the better quality of HDV. However, what do I need to do to my G4 Power Mac to be able to download HDV into iMovie and burn using iDVD? Not a lot is happening at the moment, whilst I can control the camera through iMovie but there is no review and downloading takes an earth, to process 10 seconds of footage takes about 2 minutes! My Mac is uprated to the following spec-

Will any more uprating enable HDV to be downloaded and edited or do I need to go to a dual processor machine eg quicksilver or mirror door? If so what is the minimun spec. machine I need to be looking at on e-Bay?! Alternatively, would installing a Sonnet 1.8ghz or Sonnet Dual processor do the job (with more ram I suspect) I do not have the cash and don't want to go to a new G5.

Have I made an expensive error? Will I really notice the difference in quality from my trusty Panasonic when everything worked smoothly on the G4?

What version of iMovie are you running? I have the same camcorder and iMovie HD (v5) wouldn't recognise it. I am lucky enough to have access to a copy of Final Cut, which recognised it without too many problems.

You could upgrade to a later version of iLife: iMovie 08 only runs on Intel, but it does allow a downgrade to the previous version of iMovie HD for PPC, which may or may not support the HV20. Otherwise, you might need to get a copy of Final Cut Express.

What version of iMovie are you running? I have the same camcorder and iMovie HD (v5) wouldn't recognise it. I am lucky enough to have access to a copy of Final Cut, which recognised it without too many problems.

You could upgrade to a later version of iLife: iMovie 08 only runs on Intel, but it does allow a downgrade to the previous version of iMovie HD for PPC, which may or may not support the HV20. Otherwise, you might need to get a copy of Final Cut Express.

No you haven't made an expensive mistake. I've also just bought an HV20 and the footage it produces is amazingly sharp and clear. I use iMovie 06 and I've just got a copy of FCE4 (which I'm struggling with as it's a bit more complex than iMovie). Both will import with a firewire cable - for some strange reason not supplied, but then Canon don't even put a tape in the box either). Might be worth seeing if you can pick up an iLife 06 disc from somewhere - lots of people seem to dislike the 08 version of iMovie.

I'm running iMovie v.6 on OS 10.4.11. It not a recognition problem, iMovie picks up the camera and I can fully control it through iMovie. iMovie also recognises that the video is HDV and sets the preview page up appropriately. I'm convinvced that it's the low power system that I'm running which cannot cope with HDV.

I agree with this. I do a lot of animation in Adobe After Effects on my dual 1 GHz 2002 Quicksilver, and while it's great at standard-def, it bogs down significantly with HD - although I realize it is a different animal than using iMovie, I just don't think machines from the late 90's to early 00's were designed with HD in mind. I would add that I think your 70 GB internal drive is going to fill up mighty quick, with your externals soon after if you're doing a lot of HD. Even SD makes the GBs disappear quickly. I'd check to see what kind of settings you can make in iMovie to maybe compress your footage in such a way that allows for easier manipulation - you'll be surprised at how good compressed video can look when you use the right settings... of course, it all depends on what your expectations of end-results are.

Right I get the message! I'm on the lookout for a G5 then am I......which model should I go for? The duel 2ghz seems a 'mid-range' machine at a mid-range price! I will obviously need as much ram as I can squeeze in. One went on E-bay for £600 (about 1200USD I think?). The 1.8ghz don't seem a lot cheaper but the 2.5's seem MUCH more! What else do I need to look out for? Remember, I'm wanting to download HDV into iMovie and burn using iDVD at the best quality settings I can. Will I be able to download to a large external HD or will I need a huge internal one? (ooh err missus-sorry, it's British humour thing!).

You can't burn HDV 720p or 1080i/p/aP footage onto a DVD. You're going to need Adobe Premiere Pro Cs3 for the honor of blu-ray burning and a $425 Blu-Ray Burner.

In essence, you aren't going to be able to display the hd footage without the camera and HDV export to tape.

Also, HDV doesn't give better color reproduction or anything. Its DV with more pixels. So its not better quality, just resolution.

Sorry.

But heck, if you bought the camera just snag an iMac or something. HDV tends to run at a gig a minute and stuff. NOTE. HDV is precompressed to MPEG2, so your system has to decode it. You need a snappy computer....

Also, HDV doesn't give better color reproduction or anything. Its DV with more pixels. So its not better quality, just resolution.

....

Click to expand...

Video shot on miniDV with a quality imaging element through a quality lens is pretty darned good. A lot of professional video is shot this way. The additional pixels afforded by HDV are nothing to sneeze at.

You can't burn HDV 720p or 1080i/p/aP footage onto a DVD. You're going to need Adobe Premiere Pro Cs3 for the honor of blu-ray burning and a $425 Blu-Ray Burner.

In essence, you aren't going to be able to display the hd footage without the camera and HDV export to tape.

Click to expand...

True, but a downscaled HDV picture will still look better than anything out of a DV camcorder in terms of sharpness and detail.

Quote

Also, HDV doesn't give better color reproduction or anything. Its DV with more pixels. So its not better quality, just resolution.

Click to expand...

Wrong. HDV not only has a larger frame size (1280 x 720 square in 720p and 1440 x 1080 (1.33:1) in 1080i) but also a 4:2:0 color subsampling. The better color sub-sampling (vs. DV's 4:1:1) plus the larger frame size will mean that an HDV timeline subsequently shrunk down to SD frame sizes (720 x 480 anamorphic) will still look far better in terms of detail, sharpness and color resolution than DV.

Quote

But heck, if you bought the camera just snag an iMac or something. HDV tends to run at a gig a minute and stuff. NOTE. HDV is precompressed to MPEG2, so your system has to decode it. You need a snappy computer....

Click to expand...

Also wrong, with some qualifiers. If you're editing in native HDV it takes up no more space than DV, since the long-GOP MPEG-2 compression is used to shrink the data rate down to the same 25mbit/s rate as DV. Of course, if you're transcoding to another format on import/for effects (like Apple Intermediate, and does iMovie do this automatically?), it will take up more room.

But while a lot of people still can't play HD footage, filming and producing HD is a bit pointless.

.

Click to expand...

Why is it pointless? YOu can film and produce in HDV, master back to tape. OK so for the moment, downcoverting and distributing on SD DVD would be the way most people could view, but when Blue Ray HD DVD Burners/Players become more abundant, you need just make a new Blue Ray/HD DVD disc from the HDV master you made.

4:2:0 and 4:1:1 sample the same amount of color info they just do it in different ways.

Lethal

Click to expand...

Okay, fair, brain fart. Still, the overall effect of a larger starting frame has the effect of capturing more overall information than DV when shrinking down to SD sizes for DVD (especially considering that DV pre-blurs slightly to avoid aliasing, and that DV camcorders tend to have fair-to-middling optics until you get up into prosumer cams like the DVX100B).

But heck, if you bought the camera just snag an iMac or something. HDV tends to run at a gig a minute and stuff. NOTE. HDV is precompressed to MPEG2, so your system has to decode it. You need a snappy computer....

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.